Gasgoo.com (Shanghai October 10) - The top three German luxury automobile manufacturers have maintained steady sales growth over the first eight months of the year. Among them, BMW led in global sales over the eight month period, having sold a total of 963,100 vehicles. However, second place Audi closed in on the Munich-based manufacturer, with a difference of just over 2,000 units between the two of them. Year-on-year sales growth rates for the two manufacturers were 7.8 percent and 12.7 percent, respectively. By comparison, Mercedes-Benz's sales totaled 841,700 units, growing just 5.4 percent from the previous year.
However, the three manufacturers' performance in China is quite different. According to a report appearing in the National Business Daily today, sales of Chinese-made Audis from January to August totaled 219,500 units, while BMW and Mercedes-Benz sales over the same time frame totaled 104,800 units and 51,100 units, respectively. Monthly sales for the sole month of August for the three manufacturers respectively totaled 27,000 units, 11,900 units and 9,891 units. Both BMW and Mercedes-Benz managed year-on-year sales growth of over 50 percent in August, with the latter's growth reaching 132.6 percent.
Global consulting firm LMC Automotive predicts luxury automobile sales this year to exceed 1.1 million units this year. The firm expects that sales figure to reach 1.95 million units by 2015.
